Guild Wars 2

One more thing: no matter what you do, there’s no way to weed out bad commanders from becoming commanders. No wxp rank, achievement, money needed, badges, etc. will stop a bad player from becoming commander.

I’ll preface this with: I’m an extremely casual WvW-er. I usually join when I see some guildies are in; for maybe an hour of recreation after finishing my dailies. Up until this thread I didn’t even know I could join a Commander’s squad. /feels dumb.

So, this will be from the perspective of a follower.

1. Tag colour-shape combinations is a really great idea that would expand the functionality and coordination a lot. As would the ability to differentiate tag visibility per map/guild/squad.

2. To combat griefers, increase number of people joining squads and better coordinate what happens when, make it so that only people in a Commander’s squad can drop siege. This combined with the already suggested ability to kick people from squad would diminish the griefing while still allowing casual players to help out with blueprints.

3. Allow the Commander to designate squad members with commands such as “repair gate” or “cover me”. Since I think that as in real war, the commander is a very important target; it should remain so in WvW; however same as in real war, why not assign bodyguards?

4. mapchat needs to reflect commanders better. I never use teamspeak so what normally happens is… er… somewhat random. i.e. remove or greatly reduce the commander’s chat suppression.

Honestly I personally reckon just giving the community 8 colors and letting them do whatever they want with them would be a great idea while the system is rebuilt from the ground up. The system as it stands is not fundamentally broken, though it doesn’t make for much of a ‘commander’; it’s just a dorito over your head. Doritos over your head are useful.

Something I’d like to see when/if you do rebuild it; have an “administrator” version of Commander for objectives. The administrator can attach himself to a tower/keep/castle, and then queue upgrades remotely, enable/disable taking supply form the structure, or possibly command the workers to repair or rebuild defenses like walls and cannons. Very lazy thought.

Played only WvW since launch and got the commander tag when I got a precursor sold. Personally I would like something similar to League of Legends advance ping system as some players don’t want to join TS. http://www.gamebreaker.tv/esports/league-of-legends/league-of-legends-patch-3-03-notes-and-preview/

Accountbound would be good! Multicolour aswell !

Color tags that also have shapes to designate type commander: such as offences/defensive/roamers. This is needed quickly so I would favor that over a complete overhaul. Increase the number that can join a squad and increase radius of supply/numbers count. I would prefer that commanders not be allowed to kick anyone unless they have logged off as this tends to lead to a type of exclusivity by a lot of players. Wvw is supposed to be open at any time to any player, but if someone who is not in a large guild or their guild is mostly pve they might find it hard to even get to play and leave before getting a chance to learn if they like it. Every one should be able to play without being worried about getting kicked for not being good enough.

1) Allow us to see who is joined in on the squad as well as ability to invite/kick ppl from the squad.
2) Commander MUST be able to see everyone who is in the squad on the minimap!!!!
3) All other players should be able to see where everyone is on the minimap if they’re in the same squad.

—Prioritize:
1) Tag Color
2) Commander text supression

Personally I would like to see the following changes (alot of it probably already mentioned in previous comments):

-The ability to change the color of the tag.
-If you are in a squad you should be able to see other people in the squad
-Guild Commanders, both as an option for the normal tag, or a cheaper tag for guild only. If someone is tagged up as a guild commander, only the guild can see the tag.

A comment to Yksdoris: There are not always people tagged up on a borderland/eb. It would also disallow guilds from running their own events, untagged. Or keep roaming groups from ninjaing a tower etc. So, Siege for squadmembers only, no thanks.

Added Numbers to make it more easy to read the answers to each question:

A lot of awesome ideas here.

Here are some questions I’ve been wondering about.

1. How often do people actually join squads and use the features that are there? (4 different way point markers, /supplyinfo). What would make you join squads more?

2. How much is spies a problem with commander system?

3. Should the commander icon be shown above the commanders head to the commander?

4. Should we allow a WvW upgrade to see enemy commanders (not on the map just on screen) ?

1. My experience of the squad system was, that after release it was nearly never used, then after some months, we tried to let all ppl join, then it was forgotten again.. it’s currently mostly used if there are several commanders or a troll commander on the map. The main problem here is, that ppl who leave the map, but don’t leave the squad still remain in it and the limit for ppl who can join a squad is too low. Although, I’m one of our scouts in guildraids, this means I’m unable to join a Squad, or i won’t be able to see other commanders on the map.
Next is, during guild raids, we rarely use commander, even if the one who’s commanding us at the moment has it available. This has 2 reasons, one is that it’s impossible to stop other players to see it and we would steal players from the map who should follow the other commander. The second reason is that the other servers are able to see the commander buff, making them able to easily find the commander in our raid.

2. Spies.. At first I’ll have to say that I’m in gold league of EU -> I don’t know how it is in US. I rarely have any problems with spies, there might be some every few days or weeks, but nothing serious. There are some on our server who see spies everywhere, but I think spies mainly try to get into TS, which is currently nearly impossible on our server and I didn’t hear anything about spies in weeks.

3. You can add the option for the commander to see it himself. I would prefer not to see it, cause i know where i stand and it would just be a useless icon on my screen.

4. No. If this is added in any way, I would not be using commander. For the enemy being able to tell exactly where the commander walks and where he stands would greatly improve his possibility to wipe him. I saw many fights where i put a target on the head of our enemy commander, (with our commander in my group) and afterwards he was unable to rally his groups, because we were following him everywhere he moved.
Adding a possibility to see a commander for the enemy would make the commander a tool only for big groups of “not that well coordinated people” (meaning no guild or alliance raids).

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Thanks for all the responses : )

…

One of my fav quotes on simplistic design
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.” -Albert Einstein

I think the same, that adding ranks to the commander system would not fill the roll of it. It should add the possibility for everyone to command as good as someone who did it since months ago.

1. To stop all those PvE Commanders who just want to be noticed, you could make it that the abilities, a commander has to be dependend on the people in his squad. (for example you need atleast 10players to be seen on the screen and 20 to be seen on the map) This wouldn’t hinder Commanding in PvE, while preventing a whole map full of commander symbols.

2. Adding commander to the guild system.. This might make many ppl happy, because most who write in this post are probably ppl in big guilds. But i think it should also support those who’re not in big guilds, maybe because they play only occasionally or they don’t want to be in big guilds. It should be possible to command even for someone who is in any guild who has those upgrades, while still having all possibilities.

3. Adding it to WvW abilities.. this would make it nearly impossible for PvE players to use commander. As mentioned, I mainly play WvW, but I think PvE players shouldn’t be inconvinienced with having to play WvW, just to be able to lead a raid in PvE.

And to the qoute from Albert Einstein, yes it should be simplistic, but it should still be complex enough to do everything what the players want it to do. I for myself found the idea of adding a UI for the Squad really nice, but it shouldn’t be too complicated. Something small.

Maybe a Window with 2 tabs, one for Member management, which groups are in the squad, who’s squad officer (someone who takes some of the work from the commander) and one for Squad management (is it visible on the map or on the screen for members not in the squad, squad cloes or open, who’s able to invite ppl into the squad com/offi or all, color on the minimap, ..)

Hello,

there are many great ideas in this thread, i dont want to repeat them, but what more is coming to my mind:

We all want to have restricted visibility of the commander tag, different colours of the tag. As a commander, i respect guild raids and restricted commander tag would be great for close raids. But as a commander, who really likes cooperation and coordinated attacks of multiple organized groups, i would like to see option to be able to see other commanders tags on the map just to know where is action actually going on, to better organize attacks, to see which part of the map less covered in particular moment. in the same time commander could stay invisible for other ppl on the map and be visible only to other commanders.
Currently, guilds raids wants to have some private time at WvW but, but many guilds like to help, to come when needed. When running without a tag, they can see active commander’s posistion. Why not allow Commander to see positions of guilds running around him?
Commander panel could have checkbox “Show tag to other commanders”, if he wants, he can be visible only to commanders, or stay completelly invisible.
This would really help to position on the map and see if we can make something on time or not. Now we can communicate about positions of TS or on map – on map chat takes too much time and information said on it is irrelevant when you look at the chat 30 seconds later (possition of people changes constantly). TS is better, but still if you are in combat and commanding your group, it makes a problem to speak on second channel. I really hope such thing would be usefull especially taking into account that WvW in principle is about team play and coordination.

(forgive me if somone already post such idea but im not able to read all carefully at work)

somewhere in the thread, it was mentioned to make separated line for WvW ranks abilities for commanders and someone said that we cant separate commander system between pve and wvw.
I agree that Commander tag is usefull also in PvE, but in WvW it makes totally different sense than in PvE. Thats why i would propose, that getting commander tag itself and some part of the new system would be commont to WvW and PvE, but there could be also some WvW specific part of commanding system introduced into current WvW rank abilities system.
Example abilities from the Commander line could be
1. increase wxp by 1% from activities done in 1500 range from active commander (or by joining commander squad)
2. increase wxp by 3% from activities done in 1500 range from active commander (or by joining commander squad)
3. increase wxp by 5% from activities done in 1500 range from active commander (or by joining commander squad)
4. increase some stast by +5 to all friendlies in 1000 range when running with active commander tag (not stack with other commanders effect in range)
5. increase some stast by +10 to all friendlies in 1000 range whne running with active commander tag (not stack with other commanders effect in range)

First 3 points could be great for ppl that are not commanders but wants to get some benefits from joining an organized groups under commander tag, 4th & 5th could be for ppl that are commanders, to provide some additional effect to the group they are commanding.

At the start I will say I dont have commander tag so I will be a bit teorethical, but please hear me out anyway.

I would say Commander firstly needs to be Account Bound with new name space.
Basically you buy commander and set commander name. When you have tag on it shows commander name on all characters. When you don’t – you have normal name.

Comanders should be able to join one another (main commander invites others or they invite themselves below another as sub commander). Commander should be able to mark people within a squad with different collors (just a circle next to a name that would indicate that you are with commander and what team). Also Commanders (within a group) whould see on the map all marked characters from the squad on the entire map, to allow them to see how does each group progress with their assigment.
Showing assigned group in squiad in chat would be great.

That are my thoughts for now.
I hope commander will become game changing aspect.

Great ideas and work all of you!

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

A lot of awesome ideas here.

Here are some questions I’ve been wondering about.

How often do people actually join squads and use the features that are there? (4 different way point markers, /supplyinfo). What would make you join squads more?

I never join a squad because the features are pretty much useless. It’s much faster to communicate using teamspeak or even in game chat than waypoint markers. To be honest the only time I’ve ever found the markers useful was when portaling golems with a limited number of mesmers quickly (marking the start/end points of each portal). /Squadinfo is useless because some people may be afk, not on the commander or not in the squad. /Supplyinfo is much more useful but the range should be increased to about 400.

How much is spies a problem with commander system?

I think this depends on how much the opposing servers care about winning the point game. So hasn’t been a huge problem on EU servers, not sure about NA.

Should the commander icon be shown above the commanders head to the commander?

Doesn’t really matter.

Should we allow a WvW upgrade to see enemy commanders (not on the map just on screen) ?

No. This would lead to commanders running without tag and basically forcing everyone to use voice comms. New players would find it difficult to do anything in WvW when they don’t know where to go.

DevonCarver.5370:

Okay, so before we get too far into this discussion, here is something else to think about:
Would you rather see us make some number of small improvements in the short term and larger changes long term or just tear the whole thing down and start from scratch?

To be a bit more specific, we could probably do something like multicolor markers without too much work, although it is not a given, but that would likely be the extent of things for a long period of time.

I think you should add features in this order:

1. Commander tags that are only visible for guild members.
2. Commanders with guild tags can choose which other commanders on the map can see their tag.
3. More colour options.

Altair.9154:

Example abilities from the Commander line could be
1. increase wxp by 1% from activities done in 1500 range from active commander (or by joining commander squad)
2. increase wxp by 3% from activities done in 1500 range from active commander (or by joining commander squad)
3. increase wxp by 5% from activities done in 1500 range from active commander (or by joining commander squad)
4. increase some stast by +5 to all friendlies in 1000 range when running with active commander tag (not stack with other commanders effect in range)
5. increase some stast by +10 to all friendlies in 1000 range whne running with active commander tag (not stack with other commanders effect in range)

I love those ideas, but for me where should be some trait lines, not only one. Also you would get cxp (commander xp) when runing with tag on? (not sure if it would not make more chaos than its worth.)

Basically, there should be mechanics to make it better for people to run with commander and do what he says and not only do solo missions, which are fine.

I would increse the range and make it only for people in squad (so people would join and not only run next to you.)

PvE commander here. I don’t tag up for WvW, but support the majority of WvW-focused improvements that have been suggested. The short list of tag color/shape options, improved /supplyinfo radius, minimization of chat suppression for commanders (I can see how this might be abused, though), a fixed size/top level over-the-head tag, and an option to limit tag visibility to squad-only seem like the most necessary/simplest fixes. I do, however, think a complete overhaul to introduce a much more extensive system is in order.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

I know there are a lot of suggestions about a whole commander system with points, ranks, etc. and I think that could be neat but one of our big goals is deep systems and as few of them as possible, as having a lot of small shallow systems all over the game can make it hard to maintain and keep up to date. Some examples are we could just roll the whole commander system into the Guild System and make new ranks and abilities part of guild upgrades. Another way to simplify this would be turn commander into WvW abilities and have a few lines that focus on commanding/following. (Granted this approach does make things more messy for PvE commanders).

I appreciate not wanting to add an additional system to the game; however, I would also caution against rolling commanders into an existing system. As you noted, making it part of WvW abilities makes it messy for PvE commanders. In the same vein, adding it to guilds means tagging up requires repping an appropriately upgraded guild (and/or having sufficient rank in that guild, depending on implementation). What happens when a commander joins/reps a new guild, who may not be well upgraded yet, or whose ranks are organized in a way that would grant them more permissions than leadership is comfortable giving them? Why should the ability to throw up a tag tie someone to repping a specific guild(s), or being in one at all? (Biased anecdote time: when I started helping lead Tequatl on my server, I was essentially guildless for the first few weeks.) (Also, I just imagined a troll guild whose sole purpose was granting every member a tag….)

The implementation that raises the fewest “well what about X” issues might in fact end up being a separate system. Such a system could allow for separate unlocks depending on whether you’re primarily a WvW or PvE commander (but not lock you entirely out of commanding for the other). The resultant commander window would also give a home to the raid-style group list and sub-tag promotion that many have suggested, also.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

How often do people actually join squads and use the features that are there? (4 different way point markers, /supplyinfo). What would make you join squads more?

At Tequatl, we use the markers and /squadinfo. However, getting people to actually join squads is sometimes like pulling teeth, and there are a huge number of (admittedly PvE-focused) players who simply don’t know how to. It doesn’t help that joining from the map tag seems to be bugged atm, and /squadjoin can be impossible with accented character names.

Since becoming a commander, I have dutifully started joining squads in WvW, but benefit-wise, it’s primarily just to clear other tags off the map. I never see markers set, and squad chat is rarely used.

I have an idea that commanders should be able to have 4 states of tag:
1. Off
2. Small commander
3. Guild commander
4. Full commander

It would mean that if you have your guild or pack of friends like max 10 ppl (in squad) and you raid camps and towers you can mark yourself as small commander so people will see you.

It would allow commanders to ask such a group to knock keep door, when they are next to them or something similar. (It might be a good idea that small commanders would only be visible for people with commander tag on).

Commanders griefing, for instance insulting or belittling you for not doing what they “ordered” you to do, should be banned for a few days. Provided we have some kind of screenshot of the conversation.

I know we can’t get rid of bad commanders but at least they’ll think twice before acting like d*uchebags on the chat.

Apart from the obvious factors already mentioned, tag colours, chat suppresion restrictions lifting etc. the commander could do with a simple raid UI of say, 5 or 6 groups of 5, showing name, class and supply carried. The commander can move people around to form optimal grouping by simply ‘dragging’ the players name tag. Far more efficient than typing /supplyinfo and trying to get people to form groups via chat or voice.

The commander should also have the ability to appoint squad leaders within the UI i.e. the first person in each group of 5. Basically, anything useful that can be added to a UI to reduce the need for typing would be good.

As for ‘ranking’ commanders or ‘earning’ the badge is totally unecessary, people will follow a new commander, if he does a good job they will follow him again, if not his days are numbered. Making it some form of progression will only hinder potentially good commanders in the future.

Two ideas, I think I saw #1 elsewhere, but haven’t seen #2:
1. People on your block list should not be able to see your tag.
2. An option to let only people on your friends list see your tag.

If you want a quick fix to keep people satisfied for the next ~6 months, then most people would be happy with just 2 changes:

1. Customisable tag colour/shape.
2. Ability to set squad as public or invite-only and options for tag to be visible to everyone, squad-only, or guild-only.

If you wanted to go longer-term and deeper into commander functionality there’s obviously a huge number of possibilites. A few that come to mind:

1. Commander can replace skills-bar, or have additional skills-bar, with Commander “Shouts” skills. These have no combat ability, no buffs or damage, but they allow the commander to quickly get instructions out without having to stop and type. Being able to have skills that shout (either via audio or flashing up text on screen) “Stack and Regroup”, “Push Through”, “Fall Back” or “Conceal Yourselves” would make commanding without voice-comms a hell of alot smoother.
2. In an ideal world, voice-comms would actually be built in to the game, allowing commander to talk directly to squad. Never gonna happen, but that is the dream.
3. Allow Commander to drop signal flares/beacons. Not just flashing dots on the mini-map, I’m talking pillars of light reaching into the sky, maybe different colours for different meanings.
4. A complete Squad information/UI page, that everyone can see but only commander can edit, showing everyone in the squad, their class, their supply, and assign them tasks, groups or ranks. Maybe a message-of-the-day or shout-box, somewhere that could direct people to Teamspeak channel, etc.

Commander Icon

This idea isnt new but i tell it anyway.

1) To make it simple, a commander should be able to change the color of it. For example, “Red” to attack, “Green” to defend, “Yellow” for guild activities (yellow bcs is the color of the guild chat), and “Blue” for general purposes.

2) It could be done with icons too: “Sword” to attack, “Shield” to defend, another symbol for guild, and the current one for general purposes. Or a more complex set of icons that give more specific tasks, like one for big bosses, etc.

Commander commands

First of all i want to said that i am not a commander and never joined a scuad, so, i am a little blind on this one (i searched for videos in google but couldnt find much).

1) I read that commanders can set icons over the map to mark if the scuad can attack, etc. Thinking on that, i came with this idea from the strategy games.

The scuad could be divided in sub-scuads. Those sub-scuads could be marked with circles or squares with numbers over the party members’ hp bar. Each circle or square would be marked with the number of the sub-scuad.

The idea is that the commander can select each sub-scuad and give them separate orders (only the selected sub-scuad can see those orders). Those orders could be marked directly on the floor or at the mini-map, in the same way one press Shift + left click on the mini-map to tell the party where to go.

For example, one could select Scuad 1 and mark them to go to the left, and Scuad 2 to the right, and surround an enemy.

2) Other commands could be: one to mark an area in which the scuad should stay (not as a point but as a circle the scuad should stay in), a command to retreat, one to spread, and one to stand (bcs one of the problems is that players run in fear and the zerg runs over them, if players dont run in fear, some times the end could be different).

3) The following ideas arnt to be implemented atm, bcs there arnt armies, there are only zergs. But in the case that at some point we could build armies, it could be interesting that the commander had the hability of set different scuad formations and scuad movement speed to keep the formation.

Thx for read it and sorry for the bad english.

So I skimmed over the last 3 pages, forgive me if any of this sounds like the beating of a dead horse :P.

Current Issues with commander system are:

1. Squad Chat/ Font based Communication isn’t entirely feasible in the middle of a massive zerg rush in WvW while you scramble to stay alive and ontop of your role in the battle.

2. Currently the tags promote only massive Zergs. The less that are present the larger they become.

3. Limited resources to draw from. We get the blue marker and a squad and the extra way-points, however no one can see those way points without joining the squad (I believe) and with the massive marker that can easily be followed not many join a squad.

Proposed Ideas:

1. Like the idea of new colors, this could help out in the short term greatly.

2. Hate the idea of making the tags tied directly into rank in WvW. From several hundreds of hours spent, Pre-Ranking system implementation, in this area of the game, I feel confident enough to say that I know what I’m doing in here even without being Rank 200. :P

Tying this directly to rank would also not “fix” bad commanders, as you can easily purchase WxP from the laurel vendor and rank up that way. (secondary thought)

3. Squad by Vicinity: Instead of making squads something you have to make a deliberate effort to join, a quick pop up on a players screen as the approach a commander asking if they would like to join “the squad” similar to party invites. This takes some of the weight off of new, or unfamiliar players and smooths an easy transition into playing with the group vs following the group.

4. Squads – Temporary Guilds? I saw the ideas to promote fellow players to lesser commanders inside of a given squad, and i find the idea interesting but I have no suggestions as to avoid UI clutter or difficult choices for every commander.

5. Map Markers. Waypoints are lovely but they don’t provide much detail or meaning without context. Most of this context is provided via VioP and a majority of players tend to miss out on this. I would think a revamp of the Waypoints to say.. the Green Star, Green Arrows and Red Arrows we see in our personal story mini maps and Dynamic Events world wide, Would provide much more clear and succinct direction to a group. They are easy to see, and are familiar to all players (unless you’ve never left WvW or sPvP) and with the simple touch up of a few tabs/buttons along the mini-map, they avoid UI clutter on a mass scale.

Example use -=- Commander Steve has 30 players in his squad. He coordinates via TS with Commander Cody to attack Keep X. Steve wants to let his Squad, who are not on TS, Know what the goal and path are. Steve heads north and places/draws his green arrow towards the keep door. Cody does the same to the south. Everything is going smoothly and Steve breaks through the door at the same time as Cody. Suddenly X zerg of X server arrives just behind Steve’s Squad! Steve lays down his Red arrows to let his players know tis time to GTFO while he yells at Cody to do the same.

Both squads players loose a few but the majority avoid the incoming zerg and escape to regroup and attack again. No typing required and everyone who glanced at the mini map got the message loud and clear.

Continued~

Finished~

6. Commander Visibility- Too many Chiefs is almost always a bad thing. 16 Blue chips floating about the map, all trying to get the most people in their squads just to stay visible doesn’t promote healthy competition or fair competition in the world of leadership. In fact many people who think of themselves as being good leaders or potentially great leaders are often, the worst of the worst and least suited for the job.

Commander visibility should not, thus, be based on Popularity (Squad size). This is something that may require more thought than I am able to put into it, but here’s my crack at it.

Commander tag Opacity – The more Opaque the tag, the more squad members it has on it. Translucent meaning fewer followers in the squad.

Tag limit – Bouncing off the error from Gw1 “Too many mini’s in this outpost already” It’s sad to say, but perhaps we should only allow a first come, first serve approach to having tags up (mostly in WvW but could also apply to PvE). If there is already 5 or 7 Commanders in the map, do we really need 8 more trying to gather squads to make the others vanish from the map? A Commander Stand-by of sorts could create a Que for tags to pop to avoid some unfairness here as well.

Commander Ranks – This would probably be the hardest to implement but a system where in, upon creation of a Squad or contained within that same window, Commanders are given the choices to become visible only in certain circumstances.
All – whole map, like it is now
Squad- Only visible to current squad (Option may also close squad)
Nearby – Tag shows up only to those within a certain distance (Say distance for example)
Ninja-Kitten – Tag only visible to fellow Commanders.

7. This is less of an Idea and more of a suggestion about what Commanders should feel like to the average player. Finding a commander in WvW or PvE should not feel like something you should want to avoid going to. Commanders should feel like their own Dynamic events, providing some guidance to players without demanding they have TS, Mumble and Ventrillo in order to participate and “Have fun” or “Be Useful” in what is going on. They should be a sign of activity and a beacon to rally around without promoting mindless zerg-balls, this is most important in PvE where a zerg does not often equate to fun (that’s not to say the same doesn’t go for WvW, But zergs are the standard tactical bread and butter anymore).

8. Commanding Respect – It should be possible for players, when reported for misconduct or trollish behave, abuse of the system, etc.. to lose their commander tag. Provided that the tag is being used as part of the misconduct (ie: Using the tag to call attention to ones self while spouting profanities in chat or to lead others to known exploits). Commanders should have to act differently when their tags are up. Similar Moderators in a forum, those that abuse their tags or powers, should have them disabled or removed.

9. Spies Among us- I say this asked about by one of the devs, and figured i’d put in my thoughts before i hit Post. Spies are always going to be present in WvW, and some poor soul is always going to be willing to pay the gold/money to get the gems to transfer his alt account to another server just to take up space and help out his team. It’s impossible to stop but it may be pertinent to put up a “Dishonorable” styled debuff on players who transfer servers “Too often to be up to anything good” that would prevent them from entering WvW for X to XX amount of days, or from seeing commanders on WvW maps.

Hope some of it was helpful/useful.
~Swish~

I’d love to see instant markings on the actual Field. Like a big flag to set a point that people in a Zerg/Squad/Team are supposed to get to next.
It’d need to be set almost instantaneously even while batteling, just to point where they should go (so, for example a shift+click sets the flag/flare/whatever).
In addition, being able to mark siege that is supposed to be build first, so that players can orientate themselves and don’t waste sups on needless siege.

Here are my 2-cents about the current commander tags:

1.) Although the blue commander tag is pretty, players continue to have a hard time seeing it, especially in heated fights, or where there are 2-different tags in use.
– I’ve read through this thread, and this is sort-of-beating-on-a-dead-horse, but a different color or a variety of different colors, in the frequency that a human eye can see more easily, such as yellow.

2.) The commander tag “commands” are close to useless, minus the /supplyinfo tool, and /squadinfo tool.
– This could be potentially fixed by adding user friendly commanding icons (like a utility skill slot) that appear when your commander tag is up. IE: Supply Info, Class & Level Info, Commander Chat (toggle on/off).

That’s really all I have against the current commander tags. Maybe implementing a “Guild Only” commander tag would be helpful, for those players who wish not to broadcast their presence in a borderland to the public rallying players.

A lot of WvW & PvE servers tend to use voice communications, so a lot of the commander changes players are entertaining aren’t really necessary. However, to those servers who don’t utilize voice communications as much, or for PvE commanders, creating more user friendly “commands” for the squads, will allow these players to easily communicate on their mini-maps. Utilizing Squad Drawing, and Specific Squad Mini-Map Player Colors (other than the green for non-party, and blue for party). This way communication between commander, and his/her squad is much more clear.

I digress, I’m sure you’ll make great improvements to the commander tags.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Should we allow a WvW upgrade to see enemy commanders (not on the map just on screen) ?

It would be very easy to take a single person out, so giving someone a target above their heads will not provide very interesting battles. A more subtle way to tell who is commanding may be nice however. Maybe like a commanders hat?

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Thanks for all the responses : )

I’ve always felt the commander system had a lot of room to grow mainly it does a good job of giving people something to follow but that’s about it. I used to do a lot of commanding and I found splitting a group of 20-40 up into smaller groups to be very difficult and we just ended up using parties and voice but I’ve noticed the lack of tools to do this drives a lot of gameplay to follow the commander. I know in PvE and in WvW we’ve been trying to make the content force a little more splitting as the game becomes a lot more fun when there are a bunch of smaller fights then one big one.

Having different groups in one big fight can also provide for good tactics. It will probably be tough to split people up anyway though. When there are more then one commander people are gonna be following the one that will get them the most profit or they just like the most in general. This will still create one big(ger) group and one smaller, which provides even more reason to join the big group. In this case the most important thing would be to be able to coordinate with other groups, so that everyone is working towards the same goal and is getting their share of rewards.

For wvw you get rewards for taking towers or defending it. With defending having the advantage (which it should), splitting up to attack two towers only weakens your attack and can cause you to lose both battles anyway. Besides that only the group that meets no resistance will get rewarded. To make this process of conquering more rewarding you may want to consider mapwide rewards. But I guess this is off topic so back to the point. Having visual indicators of what all groups are doing would help the most. But with currently having 1 commander being the best, having a different type of icon, a smaller one, could work.

ptitminou.6489:

Here are what I feel a commander needs:

A WvW Commander bar with:

• Auto-supply count
• Larger supply count radius
• Ability to have commander macros (such as /say Stack on Me!)
• No chat disabling (not everyone knows how to join a squad – and joining via map is broken)
• Tag colors as well as having it display the guild of that commander
• Invisible tag to hide from trolls (yes, there are a lot)
• Siegelocking non-commanders, again an anti-troll system (most trolls do not have a tag)
• Count of players in squad, in map
• Announcements to squad that pop up in the middle of the screen

A PvE Commander bar with:

• Teleport all SQUAD members in map to him (if out of combat) 10min cooldown – yes it can be exploited, but its PvE so who cares if someone gets a free teleport point once in a while.
• Ability to have commander macros (such as /say Stack on Me!)
• Announcements to squad members
• No chat disabling (not everyone knows how to join a squad – and joining via map is broken)
• Count of players in squad, in map

Generally:

• Account-bound tag so not to lock people to 1 character – the gear does that well enough
• Party configuration. The commander can set players into parties for synergy in both PvE and WvW.

I didn’t read all the replies…. but this. All these things. I second it all.

my vote goes for:

- different colors and shapes
- unlock “display guild logo”
- increase count supplies radius
- create a side toolbar with configurable macros (build! follow! run! stack! ecc)
- increment number of squad members
- allow kick
- allow “invisible tag” (to be shown only to party/squad members)

Since Devon asked: I would be for a total rebuild of the mechanic, but imho in the short run the community would greatly benefit from the quick add of the tag color slider.

I’ve got a few ideas, although I’m not sure if they’ve been mentioned before in the thread.

1: Use a player’s active guild symbol for their commander tag. Just the symbol, not the colour scheme. Have this tag affected by the colour schemes many others have suggested (first commander with guild symbol blue, second green, etc.).

2: Squads need dramatic re-thinking. I’m tempted to say do away with them completely, but squad-level text communication has its uses.
A player shouldn’t need to type or click anything to join a squad; they should simply be able to start following the commander they desire to.
To that end, maybe a commander’s squad level text commands should only be visible to those in their proximity. That is, whenever the commander or any player types anything using the squad channel, instead of it being based on everyone being in the same party, it should broadcast to all those within 200 metres or so. Where multiple commanders are in the same area, have player level squad text appear as white text and the commander’s text be the same colour as their tag.

3 : A commander’s mini-map order waypoints should be the same colour as their tag. Being able to see all commanders’ mini-map order waypoints at all times and being able to quickly differentiate between them would massively help tactical play. Only being able to see your particular squad commander’s order waypoints slows the flow of information.

4: Order waypoints should be visible as light column beacons in the world too instead of just being visible on the mini-map.

5: Order waypoints should be able to be placed on moving targets such as dolyaks or players, both friend and enemy. If placed on enemies, have the order waypoint disappear if the commander who placed it loses sight of the target.

6: Commanders should be able to draw on the map and have it visible to all players. In addition, their map drawings should be the same colour as their tag. I know ArenaNet are keen to limit universal visibility of map drawings in an effort to censor potential abuse, but such censorship completely stifles the potential of the map drawing system. To that end, players should be able to report abuse by right-clicking the offending drawing.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

A lot of awesome ideas here.

Here are some questions I’ve been wondering about.

How often do people actually join squads and use the features that are there? (4 different way point markers, /supplyinfo). What would make you join squads more?

Only time I ever joined a squad was while doing the few runs of Teq that my server did. I’d probably more inclined to join a squad if I could still see the other commanders (and make the squad commanders tag a different color maybe?).

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Should the commander icon be shown above the commanders head to the commander?

Don’t personally have a tag so I can’t really comment, but I would think the commander should be able to, but would have to be a toggle-able setting, because I’m sure there are a lot of commanders who wouldn’t want to see their tag.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Should we allow a WvW upgrade to see enemy commanders (not on the map just on screen) ?

Would be interesting. Not sure where/what line that would go in.

Not to sound rude but adding an ability to let someone see a commander tag on the enemy would result in what happens when anet tags are up.

Commanding can be difficult and stressful enough no need to add wvw tribulation modeto it.

I have read some good and bad ideas in this thread. I will therefore list my own, to either re-iterate the good or add new ones:

• Mapwide, guild- or squad-only visibility.
• Different colours when more than one is set to mapwide visibility. These can be ArenaNet sequenced as opposed to custom-set.
• Making the default “flag on” visibility squad-only. Mapwide and guild-only can only be toggled when actually having members in your squad. This way trolls and PvE look-at-me commanders will be policed by the community, since a squad-less commander will be invisible anyway.
• UI features as replacement for the commander-only chat commands.
• The ability to see every friendly dot on the map (in M-map not mini-map) and/or a friendly-count command. Numbers are important.
• Less chat suppression when “flagged on.”
• Non-scaling and fixed-height commander icon.

Thank you for listening developers!

These would be the things I would like to see

WvW

1: Colour options for commander tags to easily distinguish themselves from other commanders

2: The option to invite people into squad both individually and within an area (not too huge say 1200 max) in order to try and include pugs and such more easily. Could possibly have a similar implementation as the dance books on the gem store that allow you to invite others to join in the dance.

3: Squad member names in yellow, similar to the way party member names are in blue.

4: This I will admit is a somewhat rough idea as I can not think how to implement this idea to work in an easy to use and effective manner. However it would be nice to be able to temporarily create a sub commander with his/ her own distinct tag that can be seen by squad members. This sub commander could take about ten members in his/ her group. This will make it easier to order a group of ten to go and do a specific task by getting a sub commanders group to go and do it rather than trying to get 10 people to put x in chat and then hope they work together.

5: the ability to see how much supply those around you have (including non squad members)

PvE

1: The ability to temporarily hide someones commander tag.

2(a): To be able to show commander tag only to guildies. (b) To be able to show tag only to those in squad ((b) would have to coincide with the ability to invite squad members)

Final thoughts

Personally I think that these changes would expand the functionality of both the commander tag and role of being commander without giving much increasing the ability for people to damage others game experience.
As for allowing a slow delivery of changes or waiting for a total rework I would rather wait for a total reworking as long as the changes are discussed openly as they are decided upon in order to get player feedback before release.

Regards
Jonny

Izy, I still think that you should do some small upgrades to the commander tag. Something that can be done quick. Like extra colors and guild only tag. But your point about having compact system is valid.

I think that commander system should be rolled into the guild system. Guilds can research a commander title in art of war 5 and it is also limited per guild. So you can only have a limited number of commanders per guild. For example 3 or 4 max. Each tag should have a guild symbol/mark to show which guild the commander is from.
In WvW guilds provide major forces and most commanders are part of WvW guilds, so it won’t be an issue. Also in pve big guilds run a lot of events and their commanders are usually decent. This will cut down on random troll commanders running solo in wvw. You can still have the old blue tag too. But please make an option of disabling them in map view.

I know a lot of people want a big system for this. But I say keep it simple. It should be one of the main features of the system that makes claiming objectives by guilds important in WvW. So look into making it one system that works together well

I haven’t been able to read everything here so some of these things may have been mentioned before, but these are all the functions I personally miss in the current commanding system.

First of all I think there should be two seperate commander options. A public commander and a guild/squad commander. I’ll go into detail about what I would like to see with both starting with squad commander.

Squad Commander:

- Party Composition Control:
A squad commander can open so many new possibilities for guilds to coordinate things. If a guild’s raid leader gets full control over party compositions with the ability to form new parties and move members this could make life alot easier for alot of guilds.

- Squad Overview
If we had a way to fit in a small window in the UI with squad health bars that could be a really helpful feature especially when it comes to downed state ressing but also when to unleash aoe healing skills. Have to keep in mind that this is something that could look better on paper than in game though, I’d at least like to see it tried out.

- Visibility
Whether or not the guild commander would like to be visible to other commanders or maybe even regular players on the map or not should be an optional feature aswell.

Public Commander:

- Objectives:
A commander needs to be able to set priority structures both for defensive and offensive purposes. If he is able to do this it should also show up on the map for everyone.

- Scout System:
A new way to incorporate scouting with the commander system could also be that the commander would have extensive knowledge about all the structures on the map updated everytime a member of the server interacts with a scout panel or something in that structure. The longer it takes between updates the more rewarding for whoever does the dirtywork, that way if 5 players use the same tower it won’t be as rewarding. It should give a brief overview over siege, upgrades and damage done to the structure. (Wishful thinking but I can’t think of an abusefree way to incorporate would be to reward players refreshing siege. Although players could build random siege to abuse this. Even if the commander was given the power to value different siege differently in the tower anyone could get a tag and abuse it. If solved though it could make an interesting feature). There could also be a way to do this for offensive purposes as to scouting gate/wall percentages and upgrades on enemy towers if a good way to incorporate it is found.

- Roaming Squads:
A roaming squad should have the ability to join on the commander squad (if they wish to do so) to show where they are on the map to the commander. That way the commander and the sniping party or havoc squad can avoid running into the same camps and objectives and maybe coordinate things in between each other better. It could also make for a way to use the prioritized structure thing where he could highlight a structure that specifically needs to not have any dolyaks walk in.
One way to incorporate the scouting system with the roaming system is to have roaming groups be able to report zergs and enemy structure statuses when they see them. So the commander can get a brief overview over where the zerg has been spotted. However I could see how this would be problematic to incorporate, another appealing idea to me though.

This is just about everything I could remember off the top of my head that I had on my mind about the commander system. I may post a follow up if I recall something else at a later time. I’m sure there are alot of other good ideas here aswell that should cover most of it.

As in response to some of the questions asked in the thread:

How often do people actually join squads and use the features that are there? (4 different way point markers, /supplyinfo). What would make you join squads more?

From my experience, almost never. I don’t see an easy way for a public commander to enforce this in the future either. But a guild commander I could see getting this to work if a guild commander system is implemented. And as far as I know /supplyinfo works regardless in a small radius around the commander so it was never really needed before.

How much is spies a problem with commander system?

Should the commander icon be shown above the commanders head to the commander?

I don’t see any actual reason for this, as you already have the icon on your buff bar if you are tagged up.

Should we allow a WvW upgrade to see enemy commanders (not on the map just on screen) ?

I honestly don’t think this is a good idea, it’s obvious enough who the commander is by watching the front line of the other zerg. The amount of focus a commander would get from this would probably not be very good. Single target focus on commander with everything from moa bird to chain immobilizes is not the way to kill a zerg imo.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Thanks for all the responses : )

I’ve always felt the commander system had a lot of room to grow mainly it does a good job of giving people something to follow but that’s about it. I used to do a lot of commanding and I found splitting a group of 20-40 up into smaller groups to be very difficult and we just ended up using parties and voice but I’ve noticed the lack of tools to do this drives a lot of gameplay to follow the commander. I know in PvE and in WvW we’ve been trying to make the content force a little more splitting as the game becomes a lot more fun when there are a bunch of smaller fights then one big one.

I know there are a lot of suggestions about a whole commander system with points, ranks, ect.. and I think that could be neat but one of our big goals is deep systems and as few of them as possible, as having a lot of small shallow systems all over the game can make it hard to maintain and keep up to date. Some examples are we could just roll the whole commander system into the Guild System and make new ranks and abilities part of guild upgrades. Another way to simplify this would be turn commander into WvW abilities and have a few lines that focus on commanding/following. (Granted this approch does make things more messy for PvE commanders). Just a few examples of how to design in a more simplistic way by folding this into another system, and some of the discussions and debates we have internally every time we go to improve/update a system.

One of my fav quotes on simplistic design
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.” -Albert Einstein

Embedding the commander system inside WvW ranks or Guild upgrades seems a little gimmicky to me.

There is one existing system where the commander tag belongs: the party system.

If you are going to overhaul the whole commander system anyway, you could overhaul the party system at the same time, to make them one in the same. (Not to mention that the Party UI is STILL BROKEN in WvW.)

Just make it one consistent continuum, party -> larger group -> commanded raid. It should all be one UI with one set of tools: Simple, elegant, and powerful.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Thanks for all the responses : )

I’ve always felt the commander system had a lot of room to grow mainly it does a good job of giving people something to follow but that’s about it. I used to do a lot of commanding and I found splitting a group of 20-40 up into smaller groups to be very difficult and we just ended up using parties and voice but I’ve noticed the lack of tools to do this drives a lot of gameplay to follow the commander. I know in PvE and in WvW we’ve been trying to make the content force a little more splitting as the game becomes a lot more fun when there are a bunch of smaller fights then one big one.

I know there are a lot of suggestions about a whole commander system with points, ranks, ect.. and I think that could be neat but one of our big goals is deep systems and as few of them as possible, as having a lot of small shallow systems all over the game can make it hard to maintain and keep up to date. Some examples are we could just roll the whole commander system into the Guild System and make new ranks and abilities part of guild upgrades. Another way to simplify this would be turn commander into WvW abilities and have a few lines that focus on commanding/following. (Granted this approch does make things more messy for PvE commanders). Just a few examples of how to design in a more simplistic way by folding this into another system, and some of the discussions and debates we have internally every time we go to improve/update a system.

One of my fav quotes on simplistic design
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.” -Albert Einstein

That is the best solution in my opinion. Remove commander tags completely and switch them over to guilds entirely. A guild can then choose a different symbol per guild rank. Commanders would be global so a guild can assign the typical blue dorrito we have today and the player could choose to have it displayed or not, and if only the guild or the entire map could see them. The guild could then assign a different symbol to captains so they can display a different icon, but only people in the guild can see them. And so on… each rank could have a different icon that the guild leader chooses, but only the commander rank can be seen by people outside of the guild. Just please make it possible to assign different icons to the same rank so a guild could assign class captains for example… 1 captain in charge of all the Warriors, another for Guardians, etc.

This would resolve almost all of the logistic issues with the tag itself. You could then expand the roles of these tags through the squad system if you wanted. A commander of a squad could assign sub-commanders for example. They would have the same commander tag color, but be a different symbol and only those in the squad can see. This way they can easily give commands if multiple guilds work together on reset nights for example.

Slushey.8236:

The image attached below is my idealistic view of a Commander System in Guild Wars 2.

One of the main ideas behind this design is the ease of joining a squad. The only reason I don’t join squads in WvW now is because it is somewhat complicated and takes a short amount of time unless you know the chat code. This system would allow players to quickly view a list of commanders on their map and select them to join their squad.

Another idea implemented in my design is the ability to restrict visibility and accessibility of your commander tag. While running in WvW currently the best strategy for a server is to have one commander tag, so any smaller groups just have to target their ‘commander’ in their party. This system would allow guilds to have a ‘hidden tag’ which only their guild members would be able to see.

A smaller and less significant idea is that of colour coding commander tags. A blue commander tag is a commander with whom you have no affiliation. A gold commander tag is a commander representing the same guild as you. And a red commander tag is a commander who’s squad you are in. Depending on your own individual relationship to each commander at the time, the colour of their tag will vary.

There is a problem with where you put supply and member counts, because it would require keeping that window opened. It should be in a seperate window.

More than providing the classic proposition (color, guild tag, etc…) here is a new idea to be discussed. The goal is to achieve a better way for the commander to provide actual commands !

Summary : Provide to the followers clear visual command. The commander tag act as a environmental weapon, replacing all attacks by those commands (could be self targeted, enemy targeted, or AOE targeted)

The good :
- Provide a clear visual indication – no need for third-party application
- Giving a command is easy and used knowed tool
- Commander are focused on giving orders
- Give a distinct feeling for being a commander from “just playing”
- Deter from using Commander as a “Look-at-me” feature

The Bad :
- no more XP – can be a good thing to select not self-centered commander ;-)
- Commander cannot attack – can be frustrating

Example : A commander lead a charge to a tower. He has no attack skills but only command skills. He start with a Follow Me (skill1) : the classic dorito appeard above him. When approaching the tower, he place a Big Sword on the gate (Skill 2 : AOE target “Attack This”). All follower see a big “Attack” appears on the center of their screen. An enemy bus come in. He uses its “Stack on me” Skill that create a giant arrow point down on itself – and all followers see a “Stack on our commandant”.etc…

Why : One big problem with commander actually is that they only are a blue dorito. They may have some waypoint, but I have never seen them in action. Thus the commanding part is usually done through thid-app vocal chat – the typing is often too long and does not appear well for the followers.
One way to fix it is to provide the commander the ability to give order quickly and easily.

What do you think of this idea ? What could be the good order to implement in the skills ?

I would prefer to see a series of small enhancements to the commander system. There are a lot of good ideas in this thread that would make efficient use of available resources and would be ready sooner. I suspect that a complete overhaul of a system that works pretty well already will just bring more problems of a different nature. Also, my suggestions relate entirely to WvW, I do very little PvE.

1. Allow player to change what the commander tag looks like, whether it is just color (Good) or the shape (Best). It would be nice to be able to immediately recognize the commanders guild from the shape of the tag, but I don’t know how to best do that.

2. Increase Supply Check Radius significantly

3. Allow us to control who sees the tag, for instance, guild, squad or party members only.

4. Give commanders (who are publicly tagged up) a special color in the chat bar, to make their orders easier to find

5. Make tags account bound. Give refunds to people with tags on alts. I can see this being contentious, but a good commander is a good commander.

6. I think a commander rating system would be very useful, so that when I see someone on the WvW map, I know if they are uber-commander, or a PvE’r who just stepped into WvW and has no idea whats going on. This is the least important, and likely most difficult to get right, suggestion.

DevonCarver.5370:

What if you still acquired the current tag by spending 100g, but you upgraded to new shapes via the WXP system?

I’m not sure I like the idea of a abilities and icon unlock system to be honest. To be a good commander all tools should be available to them. New commanders would be at a disadvantage, and I think it would be difficult to be able to level up after other commanders have the new toys, players would want to follow only the “experienced” commanders.

To be a commander is to be a leader, the tools that come with the commander tag should be bought with the 100g, to be a good commander is to build your reputation, not an xp bar.

DevonCarver.5370:

Summary of Day 1 of discussion:

1) There are a lot of people that would like to see more colors and/or more shapes for the commander icons.

2) People are arguing for commanders to be able to hide their tags from everyone and only have them be visible to select groups.

3) Improved supplyinfo command.

4) No chat suppression.

5) Account bound.

6) A change to the way the icon is acquired.

That doesn’t hit everything, but it hits some of the most commonly requested stuff. In addition there has been a discussion about if it is more important to redo the whole system or provide some small quality of life improvements first.

I wanted to provide some insight into what might be required for some of the types of changes that are being requested, so everyone has a clearer understanding when thinking about them.

Any change that requires significant UI, especially any new UI functionality, is a long term change. Not only does it take time to design the UI and settle on it’s appearance, it takes time to build the functionality. That is why any full on rework of the squad system will be a large project. It is important to us that when we introduce new UI elements we have fully fleshed out their place in the rest of the game UI.

With that out of the way, I have some more questions.
1) What is an acceptable amount of chat suppression for a commander? It’s important to realize that if the system remains as it currently does, with 100g for a tag, no chat suppression would mean that people can spend 100g to spam you with whatever they feel like. That’s not an acceptable solution. I think there are other things we could do, like provide a commander only channel that has no suppression but that people have to opt in to.

2) How would it feel to have a system that gradually unlocked more commander abilities and icons, but that required dedication to WvW? Let’s say we added a commander line to the ability panel and you unlocked it with WvW ability points. What is the right starting price for that? 100 points? more? If that happens, does it make sense for the system to remain character based? Would requiring commanders to spend their WXP in this way limit them to the point that they didn’t want to do it? What if you still acquired the current tag by spending 100g, but you upgraded to new shapes via the WXP system?

About new UI elements taking a long time:
I fully expected that a UI overhaul would take a long time. However, I think it is by far the best option, and would be worth the wait.

Answers to Devon’s questions:
1) Perhaps try doubling the threshold and see how it goes?

2) I would prefer not to tie it to WXP. Truth be told, World rank is mostly a measure of how much time you spend in a karma train. Many good commanders spend hours defending and earn very little WXP from it. Additionally, the commander tags are very important in PvE.

I think it would be cool to give commanders more tools to, you know, command their respective squad.
There could be color coded location markers that could be set and only be visible by the squadmates.
Markers could be assigned to specific parties
and markers could be selected to fulfill specific tasks.

EG: commander gets colour coded team symbols, like a party window only for groups in his squad, some small number tells him how many people are in each party and he could set markers like attack this place, defend that place or push through the enemy zerg from my location to that point. Those markers could be unassigned and visible to the whole squad or colorcoded to a specific grp.
Imho this would improve pve commanders usefulness in big group events and might have some benefits to wvw commanding and telling people without TS what to do.
Dunno, just some thoughts

Honestly I’ve never seen the point of heavy chat suppression anyway.

If someone is annoying me then I can /ignore them, if someone is spamming then I can /report them.

That said a commander message only channel would be ok, but it would be nice if there was a way to interleave the messages with my main chat window, so I don’t have to switch tabs all the time.

DevonCarver.5370:

Summary of Day 1 of discussion:

…

With that out of the way, I have some more questions.
1) What is an acceptable amount of chat suppression for a commander? It’s important to realize that if the system remains as it currently does, with 100g for a tag, no chat suppression would mean that people can spend 100g to spam you with whatever they feel like. That’s not an acceptable solution. I think there are other things we could do, like provide a commander only channel that has no suppression but that people have to opt in to.

2) How would it feel to have a system that gradually unlocked more commander abilities and icons, but that required dedication to WvW? Let’s say we added a commander line to the ability panel and you unlocked it with WvW ability points. What is the right starting price for that? 100 points? more? If that happens, does it make sense for the system to remain character based? Would requiring commanders to spend their WXP in this way limit them to the point that they didn’t want to do it? What if you still acquired the current tag by spending 100g, but you upgraded to new shapes via the WXP system?

1. make chat suppression for a commander dependent on the number of ppl in his squad who’re on the map. for example if he has 50 ppl in his squad on the map he should have no suppression at all, seeing as 50ppl are willing to follow him. this would make it impossible for spambots to use it, while making commanders “immune” to chat suppression.

2. New Skins via wxp are ok, but not new funcitonallity! It would hinder the commander to progress in other wvw traits, while making it bad for those who’re just starting to do commander. For example someone who plays a bit wvw each weekend and every 2 or 3 weeks maybe takes commando will be at a bad standing.

There have been several folks that have posted here in favor of making COMMANDER tags account wide, and a couple that have been opposed to the idea. I do not have a tag, so my thoughts are from the perspective of a person who is content to follow a good leader.

It seems to me IMHO that the issue is whether the developers want the COMMANDER tag to represent the character or the gamer.

In its present set up their position is that it is an attribute of the character. I imagine, although I may be wrong, that this went along with their philosophy for character based WXP. However the developers have already announced that they are revising that view so that WXP is account based (at the urging of much of the community it seems). Thus having account based COMMANDER tags that reflect the gamer rather than the character are a logical continuation of that shift in policy regardless of whatever other changes are implemented.

I think there is some definite value to having the tag represent the gamer as opposed to the character. Many of the commanders out there are exhibiting in-game leadership. There are a couple well known commanders on my home server that lead temple runs daily and are known for the quality of their leadership in-game. Are those gamers any less valuable players because they are on an alternate character? I am confident that they show the same level of expertise and cooperative gameplay even when not running their tagged characters, so why not acknowledge the value that they bring to the game regardless of which character they are logged in on? I would think that the developers ought to encourage those commanders to continue showing leadership by allowing them the freedom to develop and run alternate classes while still functioning as a commander.

Sure there are trolls who have just purchased their tags and run them with no effort at displaying the leadership that the tags should represent. But lets not penalize those commanders who are worthwhile because others who lack their character might look like them.

However, should ANET choose to go with account based tags, it would only be right to refund commanders for each additional tag they have purchased.

DevonCarver.5370:

With that out of the way, I have some more questions.
1) What is an acceptable amount of chat suppression for a commander? It’s important to realize that if the system remains as it currently does, with 100g for a tag, no chat suppression would mean that people can spend 100g to spam you with whatever they feel like. That’s not an acceptable solution. I think there are other things we could do, like provide a commander only channel that has no suppression but that people have to opt in to.

2) How would it feel to have a system that gradually unlocked more commander abilities and icons, but that required dedication to WvW? Let’s say we added a commander line to the ability panel and you unlocked it with WvW ability points. What is the right starting price for that? 100 points? more? If that happens, does it make sense for the system to remain character based? Would requiring commanders to spend their WXP in this way limit them to the point that they didn’t want to do it? What if you still acquired the current tag by spending 100g, but you upgraded to new shapes via the WXP system?

1. There just needs to be a requirement for WvW icons that exceeds what there is now. I feel like making badges of honor and/or WXP rank 100 (for example) would show the person has at least played WvW. A commander chat wouldn’t be a bad idea, especially if it allowed commanders to talk between maps in case others needed help on a different map. Commanders could then send people back and forth to help out.

2. I don’t think adding an ability line for commanding is the way to go. There could just be options at the commander vendor that has different ones with different requirements. Want to command in WvW? 100g, 1000 badges of honor, and 100 wvw rank. PvE commanding? 100g, X amount of dungeon tokens from each dungeon. Guild commanding? Permissions in the guild panel (would restrict people from just buying them at will/random) and X amount of guild commendations (to prove you’ve done guild events). As far as abilities go, we just need a way to coordinate better. Even if we can’t change the suppression system to work without trolling/spammers, there needs to be a way to tell people within an area where to go and what to do without having to spam chat and get suppressed.

The icons SHOULD stay soulbound. Account bound icons will cause too many problems and by now, we know who our better commanders are. An example being that people could make names to troll much easier. Create a level 1, spend your extra gold, name him “Devon Carver Warrior” or “Devon Carver X” versus the normal commander named “Devon Carver”. Does the WvW team/Anet actually do anything against people that do this sort of thing? Do you send warnings? Put temporary restrictions on their account?

yksdoris.2194:

2. To combat griefers, increase number of people joining squads and better coordinate what happens when, make it so that only people in a Commander’s squad can drop siege. This combined with the already suggested ability to kick people from squad would diminish the griefing while still allowing casual players to help out with blueprints.

I like this, but to modify it a little. How about, when you’re in a squad, you can only build siege dropped by someone in your squad. Then a commander should be able to kick people from the squad who are throwing down trebs/ballistas/AC’s at a gate and wasting supply. Maybe the commander should be allowed to see who dropped the siege as well so they know who to remove from the squad.

The problem with having to be in a squad is those off moments where a commander isn’t on the map and you have a group of 5 trying to take a tower, they need to be able to drop siege as well.

Also, how about letting guilds assign members to be “commanders” (maybe give it a different name) that only their guild can see. Even if it’s just for PvE, it’d help quite a bit when doing guild missions.

What should the commander system aim for?

• It should let people coordinate groups of different sizes on screen and reducing the effectiveness gap between using voice chat and not using it.
• It should give commanders tools to make their jobs easier, and ‘herd cats’.
• It should give commanders options to control the way they can show their emblem and who is in their squad.
• It should let a commander’s experience and career show.
• It should make joining a squad compelling.
• It should not be limited to a guild. Players should be able to join on the fly without representing another guild and become commanders without joining a guild or having some guild permission. But it should also let people in a guild set themselves as commanders for just their guild too.
• It should not require doing both WvW and PvE. If a player wants to be a PvE commander, they should have all their commander and progress their career without ever stepping in WvW, and vice-versa.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

[…]

How often do people actually join squads and use the features that are there? (4 different way point markers, /supplyinfo). What would make you join squads more?

• People would probably join squads more often if doing that wasn’t so obscure and there was some extra benefit from it.
  Right-click on the icon doesn’t work on the minimap, only in the world map. And the commander can’t send an AoE squad invite of sorts.
  Being in a squad or not is just the same when in a zerg. Something like a small 5% exp/coin/karma bonus for being in the squad (it’ll could show in an effect icon on the player can see) may help.
  Also, squads are too small. 30 join, and what about the other 20 also following you?

How much is spies a problem with commander system?

• I’ve seen people lying around defeated inside a location more often than anyone that one could say it’s a spy. But this is probably because Baruch Bay is a world with Spanish language and there’s no others with that language. So when someone doesn’t speak, or speak “google translator-ish” they are probably spies, and Baruch is kind of random, having many small guilds doing their thing, or several organized guild zergs that do not show emblems, so it’s hard to keep track of all of us.

Should the commander icon be shown above the commanders head to the commander?

• Not unless there’s an option to hide it from one’s own screen. There’s the effect icon already.

Should we allow a WvW upgrade to see enemy commanders (not on the map just on screen) ?

• No. They’ll become primary targets, and people would start doing silly things like having decoys showing a commander icon while the commander doesn’t. It’ll be a counter-productive mess.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

[…]
One of my fav quotes on simplistic design
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.” -Albert Einstein

Something simpler that does the same thing is often better.
But you won’t get a laser with a light bulb.
You won’t get a car with just one wheel.
You won’t get scissors with just one blade.
You won’t get a song with just one note.

When simple things are not enough for the task, there’s no other choice but increasing complexity.

If you integrate commander into the WXP system, players who use commander just to organize PvE are instantly left out.
If you integrate it with the guild system, it forces people to make guilds, or join guilds to command, even if they were doing perfectly fine without that, or equire some commander permission that they may not have in all their guilds.

Some sort of ranking lets players have some idea about a player’s experience. But
it’s not like you need a new “exp bar” for commander. Commander could have a rank calculated dynamically with already gathered data such as WvW and world boss achievements.

And it would not hurt to have other stats gathered for both the account and each character. Which could be used by players are reference, to keep character progress (e.g. dungeon paths done, creatures of each type killed, successful events… ), and by you to do things like calculating a commander rank.